


All in the Family

by seekingsquake



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types, The Incredible Hulk - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Paranormal, Bruce Banner's Sad Backstory, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-05-05
Packaged: 2021-03-02 03:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23888263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seekingsquake/pseuds/seekingsquake
Summary: After years of running away from his past, Bruce decides that maybe he should run toward it instead and buys back his childhood home. After he and his husband move in, though, he begins to realize that there's more in the house than just bad memories, and facing his fears may be more terrifying than he ever thought possible.
Relationships: Bruce Banner/Tony Stark
Comments: 12
Kudos: 18





	1. Prologue: Three Conversations

**Author's Note:**

> This is the first thing I've written since December 2019, so I apologize if it's a bit rough around the edges. I've had the premise of this fic and some key scenes bouncing around in my head since way back in 2016/2017, so it's been a long time coming. 
> 
> Tags will be added and updated as the chapters are uploaded. This work is incomplete; I'm about a chapter and a half ahead of what is posted. I plan to upload on Mondays, but I start back at school next week so that might change.

Bruce is in the middle of peer-reviewing a research paper on black holes when his computer chimes with a FaceTime notification from his aunt Susan. He knows he looks tired, and that she’ll worry, but he hasn’t spoken to her in a few weeks so he connects the video.

“Hi, Aunty.”

“Bruce, Darling, how are you doing?” She looks as put together as ever, makeup minimal but precise, no hair out of place. Her voice, though, is more hesitant than Bruce has heard it maybe ever.

“I’m good, thanks. Are you okay?”

“Of course I am. What makes you ask?”

Even if she sounded normal, Bruce would be concerned. Susan never initiates FaceTime herself without sending him a text first. He raises a single eyebrow at her through the screen.

She stares him down through the camera for a solid half a minute before she blinks slowly. Her lips narrow into a hard line, and she sighs heavily through her nose. Susan has always had a severe disposition and has never been one to speak frivolously. After Bruce moved in with her as a child, he got used to sitting in silence with her. He got used to waiting her out. Finally, she says, “Your father left me the house in his will.”

Bruce’s father had passed away nearly two years ago, and after that initial conversation when she told Bruce he died they never spoke of it again. Until now. He takes a second to wrap his mind around what’s happening. “Oh,” is all he can think to say. His hands feel tingly.

“I don’t want anything to do with it,” Susan says. There is no emotion in her voice, but there’s a vein in the middle of her forehead that is beginning to bulge. “But I figured you should have some say in what I do with it.”

His knee-jerk reaction is to tell her that she should have the house demolished. He wants to tell her to set it on fire, and that they should both be done with it forever. But he closes his eyes for a moment, and he can picture his mother tending to her garden in the back yard, and laughing while painting one of his bedroom walls a deep forest green. He can smell shortbread, and suddenly he misses her so much he physically aches. He hasn’t thought of her for so long.

He wants to be close to her.

“Sell it,” he tells Susan quietly, eyes still closed. “To me.”

It took longer for Susan to figure Bruce out all those years ago than it did him her, but as he grew up he really didn’t change all that much. She knows that he’s made an impulsive decision, but she also knows that there’s no changing his mind. “Okay. I’ll get in touch with a lawyer or a real estate agent or something.”

“I’ll get Tony to put you in touch with someone. Did he... leave anything to me?”

“No. He didn’t think you’d want anything from him.”

Bruce thinks maybe he should feel something about that, but. He doesn’t.

✧✧✧

“Something bad happened there, didn’t it?” They’re in bed together, Tony draped over Bruce like a shield. They’ve been married for five years and together for almost ten, but after the first couple years of dating, they’ve stayed away from all discussion of Bruce’s childhood before he lived with Susan. 

“Yeah,” Bruce admits. “A lot of bad did.”

“Can you tell me why you want to go back?”

Bruce combs his fingers through Tony’s hair and thinks for a few minutes before answering. “I miss my mom,” he whispers. “And I think we can build a life there that she’d be proud of.”

“Babe, I... I think your mom would be proud of you no matter where you are or what you do.”

“Maybe,” Bruce admits. “But I want to do this. That was her dream house, even if the shit that happened there was...”

Tony can tell that the words are a struggle. “Okay. Whatever you want,” he murmurs. And he means it. Anything for Bruce. Always.

✧✧✧

“Tell me you’re not going to move into that fucking house, Bruce.”

“We’re moving into the house.”

“Oh my  _ god _ , why?” Jen’s voice is shrill with disbelief and irritation. “Why would you do that?”

Bruce takes a minute to mull over his thoughts before finally saying, “I think it’ll be good for me.”

Jen huffs. “ _ How? _ ”

“Because I’ve let what's happened there, I mean, I don’t want to say that I let it dictate the course of my life, but I’ve let what happened there really affect and inform a lot of my decisions, and I just think that maybe if I can make new, happy memories there, the old ones won’t have so much power over me anymore. Maybe I can get over it.”

“You don’t need to  _ get over  _ what happened! That bullshit would have changed anyone, and for you to sit there and tell me that you think you shouldn’t be bothered--,”

“Okay,” Bruce sighs as he puts the phone on speaker and then down onto the counter. He fills the kettle with water and gets a teabag from the cupboard. “That was a bad choice of words. But maybe I can move on from it? I don’t want to feel haunted by it all the time anymore, you know? And I just think that if I can go there and turn it into somewhere that Tony and I can be happy, somewhere that maybe one day we can start a family in... I don’t know. That gives me power, doesn’t it? I just think it’d be good. And anyway, if we go and I hate it or it’s too much, we can sell it and come back. It doesn’t have to be a big deal.”

Jen’s quiet on the other end of the line for a good couple of moments as Bruce putters around the kitchen, and then she exhales heavily. “I think you’re crazy, cuz,” she says quietly. “But if you really think it’ll be okay, you do you I guess. Just. Take care of yourself, yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bruce murmurs. “Yeah, of course.”

“‘Kay.”

“Okay.”

✧✧✧


	2. Chapter One: Foundations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bruce gets back to the family home for the first time in 30 years, and renovations begin.
> 
> _It’s Ohio in July, so Tony’s been sweating bullets all day. The house is hot and stuffy, even with those living room windows all busted, but this room... he can’t explain it, but standing in the threshold of this room, it’s almost cool. Maybe even a little drafty, despite the air outside being nothing short of stagnant. But he doesn’t quite register that, because he’s too busy staring at Bruce._
> 
> _Bruce, whose eyes are sort of glassy and whose breathing is a little laboured. Who is squeezing his hand so tightly he’s worried their fingers might just snap. “Bruce?” Bruce, who is quite clearly not with him anymore. “Babe, snap out of it.” He tugs Bruce back into the hall and then all the way through the house and back to the car, and it isn’t until they’re out there in the driveway that Bruce is back in the now._

The house looks much more run-down than Bruce remembers, but he hasn’t seen it for just about thirty years, and it’s been vacant for much of that time. The front windows are boarded up, and part of the roof over the veranda is sagging down. The front lawn needs desperately to be watered and weeded, and everything looks like it needs a pressure wash and a new coat of paint.

Tony pulls the car into the driveway and parks, and then they just sit there for a while, looking.

“It’s sad,” Bruce says finally, peering through the windshield.

“We’ll fix it.” Tony sounds determined and so sure of himself, and then he reaches over and squeezes Bruce’s hand before opening the driver’s side door and getting out of the car. “I’ve got a contractor coming in the day after tomorrow to take a look at everything, but I’m not thinking that we’ll be tearing down a lot of walls and shit, will we? I mean we’ll want to add an ensuite to the master bedroom obviously and update the current bathroom, and I’m thinking we rip out that kitchen entirely and start right over, but other than that it’ll mostly be flooring and shit, right?”

“I want brand new everything,” Bruce murmurs almost absently as he makes his way slowly up the driveway. He stops at the base of the front steps, turns to look at Tony over his shoulder and can’t hide his apprehension. It’s already weird being here. Bruce left the state of Ohio when he was fifteen years old and hasn’t been back since; he hasn’t been in this town since then-- hasn’t been in this house since he was ten years old. When he closes his eyes he thinks he can hear the echo of slamming doors, thinks maybe he’s catching a whiff of the whiskey his father used to favour, and he takes a deep breath and forces himself to focus on the now. On this moment and only this one.

Tony watches him with a serious gaze. Bruce has been withdrawn ever since they got on the plane this morning to fly out here, obviously lost in his thoughts, and Tony can’t help but feel like he’s made some sort of mistake. But then Bruce shoots a small smile over his shoulder and beckons Tony over, and they climb the steps to the front porch together. 

The front door of the house used to be a deep red, but now it’s faded into a sort of muddy brown. It’s padlocked shut, but Tony’s got the key in his jacket pocket. He unlocks everything and takes a deep, bracing breath before turning the knob and opening the door.

The foyer is dark, and the musky smell is already strong without them even stepping inside. They’ve had power and water hooked back up, but Tony hesitates to turn on the light. There’s something... heavy about the vibe he’s getting, and he almost doesn’t even want to go inside any farther. Bruce’s body seizes up, and he sucks in a harsh breath, but before Tony can suggest that they go back to the hotel and wait for the contractor, Bruce just. Goes in. 

He walks slowly across the foyer, his sneakers leaving visible footprints in the dust on the tile before he crosses onto the living room carpet. It’s a faded green shag, very ‘70s, and it looks the way that it smells-- mildewy. There are windows all along that back wall, but the glass in all of them has been smashed. Tony takes two steps into the house. To his left is the kitchen that Bruce is suddenly in somehow; it must connect to the living room to form a circle. To his right is a short hallway with three doors in it. Directly ahead is the path Bruce walked, and through the broken windows, there’s an overgrown yard with a dilapidated shed.

Bruce comes back to stand at Tony’s shoulder, and he follows his gaze outside. “We could turn it into a workshop for you.”

“Looks like it might be easier to tear it down and build something new in its place.”

His palm is sweaty when Bruce grabs his hand and twines their fingers together. Bruce tugs him gently down the hallway. He opens the first door they come to, and together they peer into the darkness down a flight of stairs. “Basement,” Bruce supplies before moving a few more steps and opening the next door. “Bathroom.” So far, the house is like a time-capsule of classic grandma decor. Even if Bruce hadn’t outright stated that they need to gut the place for all new everything, Tony would have insisted. He hasn’t seen anything worth salvaging.

Bruce leads him to the very last door, but he pauses there with his hand gripping the doorknob. He’s squeezing Tony’s hand hard enough to hurt, and he takes a deep, measured breath. “The study,” he finally says as he slowly pushes the door open. One wall is floor to ceiling built-in shelving units that are empty aside from a forgotten book or two, but there is nothing else. 

It’s Ohio in July, so Tony’s been sweating bullets all day. The house is hot and stuffy, even with those living room windows all busted, but this room... he can’t explain it, but standing in the threshold of this room, it’s almost cool. Maybe even a little drafty, despite the air outside being nothing short of stagnant. But he doesn’t quite register that, because he’s too busy staring at Bruce.

Bruce, whose eyes are sort of glassy and whose breathing is a little laboured. Who is squeezing his hand so tightly Tony’s worried their fingers might just snap. “Bruce?” Bruce, who is quite clearly not with him anymore. “Babe, snap out of it.” He tugs Bruce back into the hall and then all the way through the house and back to the car, and it isn’t until they’re out there in the driveway that Bruce is back in the now.

“Sorry,” he murmurs as he pinches the bridge of his nose.

“We don’t have to do this.” 

But one of the reasons that Tony even fell in love with Bruce in the first place is because they’re the same amount of stubborn. “You’re right,” Bruce admits quietly, “but I want to.”

“Are you sure?”

He respects Tony enough to think about the answer really hard for a moment, but he still ends up saying exactly what they both know that he will anyway. “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Tony shrugs. “Okay. Well. We’ll walk through the rest of the house with the contractor, okay? I could use some lunch and a shower. How ‘bout it?”

“Lunch sounds perfect.” Bruce kisses Tony, soft and quick, before getting back into the car. Tony scrubs his hand through his hair for a second, staring at the house, before joining him and driving away.

✧✧✧

Thor and his team have done a lot of home renovations and providing that the bones of the house are still good, this one shouldn’t be difficult. The client, Tony Stark of Stark Industries, is a big name. He could have hired any large construction company, but he had mentioned something about “stimulating the local economy by using local labour” or something. Anyway, the point is that even though the job is seemingly simple, it’s imperative that what they do here is impeccable.

It shouldn’t be difficult. In terms of structure, the only major change will be turning the upstairs bathroom into an ensuite and making sure all the plumbing and electric throughout the house is up to code. Otherwise, everything will be cosmetic updates. They’ve discussed the building of a new garage space in the back yard, but nothing about that has been finalized.

Back at the shop, he’s sure that Darcy and Jane are debating tile, backsplashes, paint colours and such. He’s got Loki working on price-matching appliance packages, and Volstagg and Frandall are downstairs in the basement, checking things out. Hogun’s in the attic.

The house has been empty since 1990. You can’t always find problems before you start tearing shit up, but it’s always a good idea to look.

Thor is standing in the upstairs bathroom, mentally planning how he’s going to need to change the layout. Tony wants the washer and drier up here in the ensuite like they have in those fancy New York apartments, and he also wants a soaker tub and separate shower. He’s sketching out layout ideas and various measurements in his notepad when he hears thumping above his head. At first, he pays it no mind but after a few minutes without the thumping ceasing, he frowns. 

The hatch to get into the attic is in the ceiling at the end of the hall. Thor sticks his head out the bathroom door. “Hogun?” he calls out, raising his voice a little. The thumping continues as if Hogun is crawling on his hands and knees quite heavily, but he doesn’t respond. “Hogun!” Thor tries again, a little louder still. The sound of movement stops, though Hogun still doesn’t reply.

It’s unusual. Thor decides to poke his head up into the attic to make sure everything’s okay, but when he climbs up there he finds that Hogun is gone. 

✧✧✧

A door upstairs slams and Volstagg and Frandall share a look. “Oi,” Volstagg shouts. “Everything okay up there?”

✧✧✧

“I thought I saw someone in the yard,” Hogun says, his eyes wide. “I told you that as I went by to check it out. Didn’t you hear me?”

Thor stares. “No,” the word comes out of his mouth slowly. “I thought you were still in the attic. You didn’t find any evidence of raccoons or anything up there, did you?”

“No, there’s no sign of anything like that.”

Volstagg and Frandall come lumbering up from the basement then. “What’s with all the door slamming?” Frandall asks.

Thor quirks an eyebrow, and Hogun gives the first floor a quick scan. All the doors are open.

✧✧✧

The house, at its core, is in better condition than it should be for something that was essentially abandoned for thirty years. The logistics of the job are easy. But the job, in actuality, is anything but.

He tells Tony that everything is fine, but it gets to the point where he never lets anyone go anywhere on the property alone. They leave the site no later than 6 P.M. each day, even though bylaw states that they can work until 8, and they always have on other jobs. 

One Saturday afternoon, Jane and Darcy drop by the house to test their backsplash swatches against the new paint and floors. The crew doesn’t work on the weekends so none of the others were there, but since the girls were going as a pair in the middle of the day, Thor thought it would be fine. 

It wasn’t.

✧✧✧

“So on the board, this mosaic tile looks super good with the laminate and the sagey colour they picked for the kitchen, right, but actually standing in the space and looking at that wall I don’t think I’m gonna like it. Hand me the sample, Jane. Jane?”

When Darcy turns, Jane isn’t in the kitchen. She glances at the empty foyer, looks into the dining area, then peers around the support pillar into the living room. Jane isn’t anywhere. She rolls her eyes. “Yo Foster, where you at, bitch?” It’s not unusual for Jane to wander off if something catches her eye, or if a thought strikes her. One time, they went to an outdoor Blues festival and Jane forgot to bring her phone and then disappeared in the crowd. Darcy waited beside the food truck that was selling snow cones for two hours because that was the only place at the venue that she knew Jane would eventually show up at.

Losing Jane inside a two-storey house isn’t a big deal. There are only so many places she could be.

Darcy makes her way down the hall, glancing into the bathroom before turning into the study. Jane’s standing in the middle of the room with a startled expression on her face. The hair on the back of Darcy’s neck is immediately standing on end. “Jane?”

Jane slowly turns to look at Darcy, but before she can say anything the door slams in Darcy’s face. Stunned, Darcy tries to turn the doorknob but can’t. 

“Darce?” Jane calls from behind the door.

“I’m here. What the fuck? Open the door.”

“Darcy!” Jane shrieks this time, hysterical. The knob starts shaking and twisting in Darcy’s fist, and there’s banging, but the door still doesn’t open. “Darcy, get me out of here! Open the door! Let me out!”

“I’m,” Darcy throws her weight against the door but nothing happens. “I’m trying! What the fuck?”

Jane starts screaming, blood-curdling and piercing, and Darcy doubles down on her efforts to get inside that room. One of the guys has left a hammer on the kitchen counter, and just as Darcy is about to run back and get it so she can literally bust the door down, it opens and Jane falls into her arms. “Go, go, go, go,” Jane yells at her, and together they scramble as fast as they can out of the house and to Jane’s Jeep. She fumbles with her keys, but Darcy snatches them from her hands and jumps into the driver’s side. They peel out of that neighbourhood faster than Darcy has ever driven in her life, and she doesn’t stop until they reach the shop.

Jane cried the whole way, full-body, shuddering sobs, and when Darcy finally turns her head to get a good look at her, she trembles.

There are red marks around both of Jane’s wrists as if someone had grabbed her real hard, and her lower lip is bleeding. “Something pulled my hair,” Jane manages to say between her tears. “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Darcy says quietly, grabbing Jane’s hand and squeezing it. “But we’re not going back there. Ever.”

“Okay.” Jane nods, then leans her head against the window. “What am I going to tell Thor?”

Darcy is too busy staring at the bruises on Jane’s arms to answer her.

✧✧✧


End file.
